This paper investigates the value of recommendations for disseminating economic information, with a focus on frictions resulting from preference heterogeneity. We consider Bayesian expected-payoff maximizers who receive non-strategic recommendations by other consumers. The paper provides...

This paper uses firm level panel data from Ethiopian manufacturing to investigate the investment behavior of firms under uncertainty. The paper focuses on the heterogeneity of firm level investment responses to both demand and supply side sources of uncertainty. Accordingly, the...

This paper analyzes firm level adjustment of the product mix and its implications for aggregate output growth. Using firm level panel data from Ethiopian manufacturing during the period 1996-2007, it shows that about 30% of firms adjust their 'extensive margin' annually by adding and/or dropping...

This paper investigates which firms suffer from informal competition and highlights the role of access to finance in this context. We use cross-sectional data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys covering 42,000 firms in 114 developing and transition countries for the period 2006 to 2011 and...

The hypothesis of market power in the Norwegian primary aluminium industry is tested using plant-level panel data. Economies of scale are found to be present, and Norwegian aluminium plants charge a procyclical price-cost margin that significantly exceeds zero. Consequently, the simple...

It has been noticed in several countries that many corporations do not claim all of their allowable tax depreciation deductions, despite incurring a higher tax cost. There are several possible explanations. First, the uniform reporting accounting system (typical of many European countries) can...

A framework for analyzing substitution and scale properties, and technical change from plant-level panel data is presented. Focus is on comparing the constant and random coefficient specification of the substitution and scale parameters and investigating the potential variation of the parameters...

This paper analyses how changes in market structure have affected the margins (measured by the Lerner index) of Norwegian aluminium plants. Instead of showing the expected negative trend, due to increased competition internationally, the margins are found to move procyclically around a constant...

We develop an econometric model for firm exit, using stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) as a starting point. According to SDP, the value of an operating firm can be written as the sum of (i) the net present value of continuing production if the firm is committed to a future exit date, and (ii)...

An applied econometric study of aggregation, based on an unbalanced panel data set for manu-facturing plants is presented. Panel data are informative in examining aggregation of variables, parameters, and relationships empirically since they (i) allow estimation at both the micro and the macro...